In Loving Learning: How Progressive Education Can Save America's Schools, Tom Little and Katherine Ellison describe Tom’s experiences, personal joumey and knowledge of progressive education. During a pilgrimage to 45 progressive schools, Tom set out to visit schools that unabashedly called themselves progressive and asked the question, "What is progressive education?" This essay first reviews the book around six core strategies identified as progressive, and then provides a discussion in the context of 20th century curriculum ideologies. Differences between ideologies are what lead to the dualism that makes education divisive. The current state of education reveals a new surge for change. By avoiding the -isms that force the dichotomy in education, progressive education strategies can play a more central role in curriculum.

The purpose of this empirical study is to determine how and to what extent the use of animations impacts auditory acquisition, one of the key learning fields in 6th grade grammar, as measured by students’ academic success and completion rates. By using a pre-test and post-test design, this emrical study randomly divided a group of Turkish 6th graders into an experimental and a control group, who were taught the same standard lessons (as set forth in the Turkish annual lesson plan) by the same teacher for a period of 10 weeks. In addition to the standard lessons, the experimental group was also shown animations. The results revealed that phonetics performance improved for both the experimental and the control group, but that the group who had been shown the animations improved much more than the group who had been instructed via traditional methods only.

Aktürk, V. (2012). Effect of using animation and digital maps on the ability to perceive places among students in the social sciences (Unpublished post-graduate dissertation). Afyon Kocatepe University, Afyonkarahisar.

Bunce, D. M. & Gabel, D. (2002). Differential effects on the achievement of males and females of teaching the particulate nature of chemistry. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(10), 911-927. Bülbül, O. (2009). Study of the effects on academic success and retention of the use of animations and simulations in the teaching of optics in physics via computer-assisted instruction (Unpublished post-graduate dissertation). Çukurova University, Adana.

Sülükçü, Y. (2011). Computer-based development of materials for teaching Turkish to foreigners (basic level A1) and its effect on students’ success (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Name of university, Konya.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of religion on Turkish early childhood teachers’ factuality judgments and reasoning. Participants responded following questions about the story of “Moses’s stick”: 1) Can Moses run water from a dry fountain just by hitting his stick to the ground? 2) Why, or why not? 3) Would you read this story to your children in your classroom? 4) How would you respond to your children in your classroom if they ask you, “Could Moses flow water from a dry fountain just by hitting his stick to the ground?” Findings revealed that 82.4% of the participants responded to the first question affirmatively, 83% provided religious reasoning for their response, 72% would not read this story to their children and 56% provided religious explanation for question four. In-service education on the nature of science, epistemology, the philosophy of science, the historical development of science, and scientific thinking, through which teachers can acquire scientific attitudes and practice scientific discussions should be provided. Thus, they can internalize science and understand that science is not an isolated discipline that is practiced in universities, but rather, in secular life it is the core of everyday living.

Abbott-Shim, M., Lambert, R., & McCarty, F. (2003). A comparison of school readiness outcomes for children randomly assigned to a head start program and the program’s wait list. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk 8(2), 191–214.

Levenstein, P., Levenstein, S., & Oliver, D. (2002). First grade school readiness of former child participants in a South Carolina replication of the parent-child home program. Applied Developmental Psychology 23, 331–53.

In theory, a strong democracy rests on robust citizen participation. The practice in most democracies is quite different. This gap presents a challenge, which can be narrowed by augmenting civic education to bring it up to date with the current information environment and thus give citizens the opportunity to participate. Robert Dahl’s work on democracy provides a model that looks at this problem structurally. He writes about the ideals and the actual institutions necessary for a democracy and if we situate his model in the modern information environment we get a better idea of how to improve civic education. Successful citizen participation in the U.S. relies on two key factors: the ability to winnow relevant information as well as an opportunity to get reliable information from alternative sources.

Blair, T. (2014, December 4). Tony Blair: For True Democracy, the Right to Vote Is Not Enough. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/opinion/tony-blair-is-democracy-dead.html

Bridis, Ted. (n.d.). US sets new record for denying, censoring government files. Retrieved May 21, 2015, from http://www.standard.net/Government/2015/03/18/US-sets-new-record-for-denying-censoring-government-files-1

Carr, D. (2013, December 8). Where Freedom of the Press Is Muffled. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/business/media/where-freedom-of-the-press-is-muffled.html

Carr, D. (2014, November 2). Journalism, Independent and Not. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/business/media/journalism-independent-and-not.html

Corporate Transparency: The openness revolution. (2014, December 13). The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/business/21636070-multinationals-are-forced-reveal-more-about-themselves-where-should-limits

Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education | Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). (2015, February). Retrieved May 20, 2015, from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework

Gastil, J & Keith, W. (2005). A nation that (sometimes) likes to talk: a brief history of public deliberation in the United States in John Gastil and Peter Levine (Eds.), The deliberative democracy handbook: strategies for effective civic engagement in the twenty-first century (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0512/2005010920.html

Greenwald, G. (2006). How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok (English Language edition). San Francisco; Berkeley, Calif.: Working Assets Publishing.

Greenwald, G. (2014). No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.

Sullivan. (n.d.). Who’s a Journalist? A Question With Many Facets and One Sure Answer. Retrieved May 21, 2015, from http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/whos-a-journalist-a-question-with-many-facets-and-one-sure-answer/

The purpose of the study is to examine employees’ individual attitudes towards diversity management and respect for diversity in secondary education in views of secondary school administrators and teachers, and to explore the relationship between these concepts. According to the results of the study, administrators and teachers in secondary schools display positive individual attitudes and behaviours towards diversity. School administrators and teachers’ organizational norms and values associated with diversity are positive. However, there is a low positive relationship between respect for diversity and diversity management.

The overall purpose of this study is to explore secondary school students’ images of scientists. In addition to this comprehensive purpose, it is also investigated that if these students’ current images of scientists and those in which they see themselves as a scientist in the near future are consistent or not. The study was designed in line with the case study research in a qualitatively manner. The working group is of totally 175 (95 boys, 81 girls) secondary school students enrolled in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade of a public school located in the province of Adıyaman. Data were collected through drawings during the drawing activity and interviews conducted with the selected drawings’ owners in order to explore images of scientists. Elements take place in the drawings which are investigated by two of science education expert and one of art expert were analyzed in accordance with certain categories appearing in the related literature. Furthermore, fifteen pictures among others were randomly selected and their owners were asked to imagine themselves as a scientist in the near future and consequently depict and draw on a paper their imagination. For further information, interviews were carried out to determine the differences between the first drawings and the second ones. It is concluded that 68% of secondary school students draw a natural scientist or scientists, 2,28% of those draw a social scientist or scientists and finally the rest draw no scientist. The rate of drawings including only one scientist is %66,85 while the rate of drawings possess more than two scientists %4,57. On the other hand, the rest of the drawings are without any scientist. There is no obvious difference in all categories selected in the context of the study according to grade level and gender. The study revealed the possibility of the fact that secondary school students’ images of scientist are substantially formed by the content of prevailing mainbooks and workbooks including activities in the classrooms. When talking about scientists, the majority of the students depict a naturel scientist who works more often in the laboratory, especially male and bespectacled. In addition, students mostly consider people as a scientist who work in the field of natural sciences. Consequently, doing science is an individual effort in an indoor environment rather than a set of group activity. Finally, data from interviews show that most of the students have a dream of being scientist in their future careers.

Keywords: Nature of Science, Images of Scientists, Drawing Technique

References

AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science (1990) Science for all Americans (New York: Oxford University Press).

AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science (1993) Benchmarks for Science Literacy: A Project 2061 Report. (New York: Oxford University Press).

Lynn D. Newton & Douglas P. Newton (1998) Primary children's conceptions of science and the scientist: is the impact of a National Curriculum breaking down the stereotype?, International Journal of Science Education, 20:9, 1137-1149, DOI: 10.1080/0950069980200909

The relationship between metacognition in real life situations and study skills and habits was examined using a sample of college students. Results showed no significant relationship between these two variables nor was there a significant relationship between study skills and reaction time as measured on the metacognitive test. However, there was a positive significant correlation between study skills, and high school and college GPA's; a significant negative relationship between high school GPA and reaction time; and a positive significant correlation between high school GPA and metacognitive test scores calculated based on reaction time. High school GPA was significantly related to study skills and to the relationship between study skills and academic performance as opposed to college GPA. The importance of college GPA as a significant predictor of study skills depends on whether or not students grades were assigned objectively without manipulation or inflation.

Al-Hilawani, Y. (2008). Metacognitive performances of hearing students and of students who are deaf and hard-of- hearing on two types of measures: Visual-voiced and visual-visual stimuli. International Journal of Disability, Development, and Education, 55, 331-339.

Science, Technology, Society, Environment (STSE) is an education movement that started and developed from 70s through early 2000s. Although this movement had lost emphasis in recent years, it is one of the most important educational reform attempts in science education history. Today, concepts like Socio Scientific Issues (SSI) or Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) education are more prevalent. STSE reform aims making science more relevant for students while helping them attain scientific literacy. If applied well, this approach is very powerful in achieving this aim. This study explores the effect of an elective course on students’ competencies in STSE education. Turned in assignments and presentations of 22 participants were the source of data, which was analyzed through content analysis. Results show that students were able to achieve high competency in certain areas of STSE education, while having difficulties in others. This study may have implications for university level STSE courses.

European Commission. (1995). White paper on education and training: Teaching and learning—Towards the learning society (White paper). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications in European Countries.

The purpose of this research was to examine whether loneliness might play a mediating role between perceived social competence and cyberbullying in Turkish adolescents. The participants were 326 high school students who completed a questionnaire package that included the Cyberbullying Scale, the Perceived Social Competence Scale, and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Relationships between loneliness, social competence and cyberbullying were tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and predictions of each variable by the domains of the other were calculated with Linear Regression Analysis (LRA). Findings showed that perceived social competence, cyberbullying and self-efficacy were related to each other’s. Hierarchical Regression Analysis results indicated that loneliness partially mediated the relationship between perceived social competence and school burnout.

Griezel, L., Craven, R. G., Yeung, A. S. & Finger, L. R. (2008). The development of a multi-dimensional measure of Cyber bullying. Paper Presented at The Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, December 1-4, Brisbane, Australia.

Sarıçam, H. (2015). Mediating role of self-efficacy on the relationship between subjective vitality and school burnout in Turkish adolescents. International Journal of Educational Researchers (IJERs), 6(1), 1-12.

Turkish preservice science teachers have been taking a two-credit astronomy class during the last semester of their undergraduate program since 2010. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between preservice science teachers’ astronomy misconceptions and their attitudes toward astronomy. Preservice science teachers were given an Astronomy Attitude Test and a conceptual test at the beginning of their astronomy course. Three students from each of three attitude levels (low, medium, and high) were selected for interviews and asked to explain their conceptual test responses in depth. Generally, low-attitude students had more misconceptions and gave non-scientific, low-level explanations, whereas middle- and high-attitude students gave more scientific explanations. The results suggest that students develop negative attitudes about a subject in which they lack knowledge.

Because students learn from each other as well as lecturers, it is important to create opportunities for collaboration in writing classes. Teachers now benefit from access to plagiarism detectors that can also provide feedback. This exploratory study considers the role of four review types, open and anonymous, involving the students themselves, peer and tutor reviewing, and anonymous digital review by means of plagiarism detectors. Eighty-seven freshmen from Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, participated. Throughout the term, feedback was provided by four sources: the tutor, peers, software, and by students themselves. At the end of the term, written assignments were self and peer reviewed, and graded by the course lecturer. Results indicated that higher-scoring students could manage both self and peer review tasks more effectively. The study suggests that academic writing and reviewing skills are related, and that integrating review skills into evaluation procedures may result in a more reliable assessment.

Aghaee, N., & Hansson, H. (2013). Peer portal: Quality enhancement in thesis writing using self-managed peer review on a mass scale. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 14, 186–203.

Razı, S. (2013). Assessing academic writing: Development of a rubric and relating Turnitin reports. Paper presented at International Conference on Interdisciplinary Research in Education, Kyrenia, Cyprus.

Turnitin. (2010). The scientific basis of Turnitin: Research on effective writing pedagogy and practice. Retrieved from http://pages.turnitin.com/rs/iparadigms/images/Turnitin_Scientifically-based_Research_Review_med.pdf

Turnitin. (2014). Research study: Turnitin effectiveness in U.S. Colleges and Universities. Retrieved from http://pages.turnitin.com/rs/iparadigms/images/Turnitin-Effectiveness-HE.pdf?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRolvK%2FPZKXonjHpfsX67%2B0qX6C1h4kz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMScViPa%2BTFAwTG5toziV8R7nCJM1s0dkQWRHh

This study investigates the relationships between Internet addiction and the areas of life satisfaction and positive or negative affects in Turkish adolescents. The research sample comprised 358 students studying in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades at four different middle schools in Canakkale city centre during the 2012–2013 academic year, of which 189 (52.8%) were females and 169 (48.2%) were males. Of the participants, 131 (37%) were sixth graders, 90 (25%) were seventh graders and 137 (38%) were eighth graders. The Internet Addiction Scale, the Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale and the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience were used as data collection instruments in the study. Research data was analysed using Pearson's product-moment correlation technique and multiple linear regression. The results indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between Internet addiction and school and family satisfaction, and a significant positive relationship between Internet addiction and negative affects. The regression analysis results indicated that school satisfaction and negative affects are important predictors of Internet addiction. The results suggested that increasing adolescents’ school satisfaction and developing their ability to regulate their emotions might be useful in decreasing Internet addiction.

Senol-Durak, E., & Durak, M. (2011). The Mediator roles of life satisfaction and self-esteem between the affective components of psychological well-being and the cognitive symptoms of problematic Internet use. Social Indicators Research, 103, 23–32.

Football is enjoyable and meaningful together with the fans. However, the hate crimes (racism, discrimination, humiliation, xenophobia and Islamophobia) are social diseases of some fan groups, and threaten public safety and the social life. UEFA has been determined to fight against hate crimes in football by creating a network called FARE, and by implementing a road map called 10-Point Action Plan since 2003. The purpose of this case study is to analyze the Turkish Football in relation to the UEFA’s 10- Point Action Plan against Racism. The findings of this study revealed that the policies implemented in Europe with success were hardly put into practice in Turkey. No policies were developed to implement the UEFA’s 10-Point Action Plan and the recommendations of the European Commission were not taken into consideration in Turkey. Although the football produces a very significant economic resource, no funds were allocated to education of Turkish football fans.

Cerrahoğlu, N. (2012): Football Enthusiasm in Turkey and the New Tendencies, Education for Active Ageing and Active Citizenship, IV. International Congress of Educational Research - Istanbul/TR, Abstracts, (pp. 155 -158).